Free Split Heirs by Esther Friesner, Lawrence Watt-Evans

ended in an abrupt splash, shortly followed by a call of, “ooh, stinky! ”
    Fang decided that the spectacle was over, and settled down atop the post, planning to take a nap. His attempt to find the optimum comfortable position involved swinging his tail around, however, and the motion caught the eye of Wulfrith’s brother, who had paid no attention whatsoever to the recent disasters.
    The tail was irresistible, and Dunwin had not yet acquired the concept of resisting temptation in any case; he grabbed for the waving line of gray fur, little fingers clamping on with roughly the same force as a pit bull’s jaws.
    Fang abruptly found his nap interrupted by a strong pressure and downward pull on his tail. Visions of crocodilians and canines shattered his feline composure, and eighteen razor-sharp claws dug into the weathered wood of his perch. He yowled.
    Dunwin tugged innocently at Fang’s tail, enjoying the feel of the fur; the cat let out a wail several degrees more impressive than the one Daddy Odo had produced the night before upon finding that the boys had made up his bed for him, using the only cloth that they could handle easily, which was their own soiled diapers.
    Dunwin and the trapped Wulfrith both admired this amazing new sound, and in hopes of hearing it again, Dunwin gave Fang’s tail a jerk powerful enough that the cat came sailing off the fencepost, splinters spraying in every direction as claws pulled loose from weathered locustwood.
    Three sheep, struck by flying debris, panicked and ran, one of them colliding with the remains of the hayrack, snapping its remaining joints.
    Fang gave a shriek that was heard not just in Stinkberry, but in three other villages as well.
    And Odo finally woke up.
    He staggered to the door of his hut and looked out at the world, expecting to find all the demons of the forty-six hells of Old Hydrangean mythology rampaging through his fields.
    Instead, he found Dunwin swinging Fang by the tail in a desperate and successful effort to keep the animal’s claws away from his face, while the cat continued to produce new and inventive noises; he found the recently filled hayrack and its erstwhile contents scattered across half an acre; and he found his sheep running back and forth, bleating in panic.
    Latoya, his finest ewe, had two patches of bare skin showing where handfuls of wool had been ripped out.
    The bellow that emerged was so impressive that Fang forgot his own problems and stared in admiration. The sound managed to penetrate Dunwin’s sublime self-centeredness sufficiently to worry him. And it gave all the sheep a single direction in which to run — away from their master.
    Odo marched out of the hut, breathing heavily; Dunwin thoughtfully lowered Fang to the ground and released the death grip on his tail, whereupon Fang decided it would be a good idea to be somewhere else for the next day or two, and, with the aid of his mystical feline abilities, vanished.
    Odo stamped across the field and stood over Dunwin, glowering at the child.
    â€œHello, Daddy Odo,” Dunwin said. He smiled endearingly.
    â€œWhat in the name of all the bleeding gods is going on here?” Odo demanded.
    Dunwin looked around, blinking innocently.
    â€œWhere?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
    For a moment, the boy’s adoptive father stared at him, unable to speak; then, perhaps a trifle belatedly, it registered on the shepherd’s consciousness that he was only addressing one child. “Where’s your brother?” Odo asked, suddenly worried.
    â€œDown well,” Dunwin said, pointing in the wrong direction.
    Odo, ignoring the pointing finger, turned in the direction of the well. “Again?” he asked wearily.
    â€œ Stinky well,” Dunwin amended.
    Odo blinked.
    â€œHello, Daddy Odo,” Wulfrith called from the cesspool.
    Slowly, Odo turned back around to face the pit. A whiff of ordure reached him — Wulfrith was stirring